the duchess will see you now

If Only

The other night, Jim and I watched The World According to Garp. I read the book long ago and this was the second time I’ve seen the movie. Watching it again, at this point in my life, seemed pertinent to two things that are nearly always on my mind but perhaps have been more in the foreground lately: parenting and writing.

My favorite thing about parenting was sharing as much of my knowledge with Mycol as I could and expanding his world to include as many experiences as possible. I loved teaching him the academics, like reading and math, and I loved talking philosophically with him, at any age, in an effort to get him to consider the relationship between himself and the world.

When Mycol was 13, John Irving was on the schedule of presenters for the Drue Heinz Lecture Series. Because I’d read nearly every one of his books, I was excited to go and hear him speak. He was promoting his then yet-unpublished novel Until I Find You. I took Mycol with me. A prominent theme in many of Mr. Irving‘s stories is that of an only-child; a son, raised by a single mother. At the lecture podium he spoke to the audience about the pros and cons of this relationship, which was again featured in the upcoming book. He spoke about how only-children often get included in adult conversations, and in particular, only-children of single parents are likely engaged in even more still, because the parent relies on the child to be a sounding board for venting daily struggles they would otherwise dump on a spouse. And to top it all off, Mr. Irving felt that this situation is most exaggerated when the only-child is a boy and the single parent is a mother. So, there we sat, my 13 year-old son and I, in the Carnegie Music Hall, listening to John Irving talk about how the single mother in Until I Find You treated her son like an obligated boyfriend, and when I looked around the room all I could see were couples, not one single other pubescent child at all. True, I’d wished my boyfriend would’ve gone with me, but I also felt glad that my son said he’d go when I asked him. I was proud when he participated in things of that nature without so much as sighing, as if he really had learned to thirst for knowledge and new experiences (from me, of course!). But when John Irving started to say those things, I felt like a spot-light was on us and I was flushed with embarrassment. He’d called me out and announced to everyone that it was inappropriate to bring a child to adult programs. After all, he was (is) John Irving.

Well, thank God, my son wasn’t scarred for life!

It reminds me of how my brother and I grew up in a house filled with books. I am by far a more avid reader than he is, which I can only imagine is a direct result of the trauma incurred by Richard III when he was merely 3!

Then there is writing. Another prominent theme in Mr. Irving‘s novels is a main character who is a writer. A writer who struggles. Authors are always saying the same thing about writing – that it is hard. It is so hard to find the necessary discipline to keep at it, to not think everything you write is crap, to stop procrastinating by doing everything under the sun other than write something and just do it. John Irving had a lot of athletic discipline as a wrestler. I’ve been inspired every time I remind myself of what he used to do. He used to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and sit at his desk to write. He set an alarm clock on his desk to ring at 8:30 am, at which time he would push away from his desk and lead the rest of his life, which was the life of a father, husband, wrestling coach, and teacher. Whether he got anything on paper in those 3 hours was not necessarily the most important thing.

I have a slightly different clock than John Irving. I don’t ever plan to get up before the sun rises, it makes my stomach turn. But I am pushing myself, challenging myself every day to try harder, to do my best, and looking for inspiration. Sometimes I think that I could pour all of my parenting energy into writing discipline and I may end up with yet another creation (besides my only child).